By Brigitte L. Nacos
As the Washington
Post reports today, the Bush administration “authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian
operatives inside Iraq as
part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it
to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism
officials with direct knowledge of the effort.” But the idea to counter Iran’s
growing influence in Iraq by hunting down Iranian Revolutionary Guards and
intelligence agents and in the process convince Tehran to fold its nuclear
program seems as unrealistic as so many other features of Washington’s old and
new Iraq policies. To be sure, when and where Iranians provide Iraqi insurgents
with explosives and rockets, they must be stopped. But as Dafna
Linzer reports, “if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S.citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.” Moreover, the offensive gainst Iranians in Iraq “has several influential skeptics in the
intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department
who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.” One wonders whether the architects of the new policy want to bring about such
a confrontation with Iran in the first place.
Much of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq is the result of the post-invasion failure of the United States to put in place and implement a massive pacification and reconstruction program that would have created the environment for Iraqis to live at least somewhat normal lives. But nearly four years after the invasion, this has simply not happened. Just like terrorist organizations (e.g., Hezbollah and Hamas) have proven most successful in winning popular support, when they provide social services and scarce resources that governments cannot provide, Iran offers Iraqi Shiites what they need and want. For example, as reported by the Post’s Joshua Partlow, sick and wounded Iraqis receive the medical treatment in Iran that they cannot get in their homeland. Moreover, he reports that “Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script…”
Once terrorist groups and the state sponsors of terrorism
win public sympathies because of their social services--not necessarily because
of their violent activities, they will find nevertheless plenty of hiding
places for their militant operatives within communities that receive their aid.
This should be expected in Iraq,
if there is indeed an all out offensive against Iranian agents and suspected
operatives.
Thus, such an offensive against Iranians in Iraq would reach into Shiite neighborhoods and deepen anti-American sentiments there and, most of all, move the U.S. and Iran closer to a serious confrontation.
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